Bottoms up: How to build your glutes (and prevent back pain)

Strong glute muscles aren’t just important for a shapely behind. They can prevent back pain and offset hours of sitting at your desk

It’s important to include gluteal exercises such as squats and lunges before a workout to warm up the muscles and prepare them for activity.

Do you have lazy glute syndrome? Months of lockdown living has meant more time sitting on our backsides, and experts warn that a side-effect of this spiralling inactivity is that the biggest muscles in our body are being woefully deconditioned.

“Not all muscles waste away quickly,” says Jack Chew, a musculoskeletal physiotherapist and spokesman for Britain’s Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. “But the gluteal muscles in our buttocks lose significant strength and mass when they aren’t used as much, and it can happen within weeks.”

The glutes underpin efficient human movement

If you think a loss of butt bulk may be a good thing, think again. As the body’s powerhouse, our glutes are relied on to improve movement and balance, posture and performance. They act as a support for the entire body and as a shock absorber during exercise.

“Our gluteal muscles are not switched on when we are sitting on them so they start to atrophy when we sit a lot,” the physiotherapist Sammy Margo says.

“When we stand up, walk, jump or run, these large muscles are used to stabilise our pelvis and drive our movement, so it is incredibly important to keep them strong.

“Since they are involved in knee alignment, people are more prone to knee pain when their glutes aren’t strong. Back pain is also more common.”

From our thirties onwards, we are prone to lazy glute syndrome through too much sitting. “Glutes have been largely overlooked by the fitness industry in recent years in favour of core abdominal muscles, and so they are not as strong and efficient as they could be,” personal trainer Zana Morris says.

This doesn’t mean that glutes lie dormant, just that they aren’t being recruited as often as they need to be to stay strong.

“Unless you have a neurological disorder, there’s no truth in the belief that your glutes fall asleep and don’t respond at all,” Chew says.

“And it’s also outdated to suggest that there is a faulty firing pattern between underdeveloped glutes and the back muscles that can be corrected by glute activation exercises.”

It’s important to include gluteal exercises such as squats and lunges before a workout to warm up the muscles and prepare them for activity.

Professor Jonathan Folland, an expert in neuromuscular performance at Loughborough University, says the glutes underpin efficient human movement.

“Even in sedentary people, the gluteus maximus is the human body’s biggest muscle and there are evolutionary reasons it developed that way,” Folland says.

“Our ancestors needed to be able to run fast for their own survival, and fast running depends on the ability to power from the hips to drive our legs forward, snapping down the lead leg to push hard against the ground so that we move quickly — all of which is largely dependent on gluteal strength.”

Lunges are a good exercise for the glutes. The back foot can be on the ground.

Quite how much glutes affect the way we move was shown in a recent study by Folland that was published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. He discovered that how fast people can run is influenced not only by diet, technique and genetic make-up, but also — and perhaps more significantly — by the size of their buttock muscles.

For his trial Folland set out to measure the sizes of 23 muscles in the lower bodies of 42 male sprinters (all of whom could run 100m in between 9.91 and 11.25 seconds). His results showed that the size of the gluteus maximus, the muscle that forms the bulk of the backside, is key for achieving fast running speeds, and the glutes were 45 per cent bigger in elite sprinters than non-elite sprinters.

Even for the non-speedy, it is likely that the results matter.

“We don’t know if this is down to nature or nurture, whether the athletes developed big glutes as a result of training or were born with them,” Folland says.

“But increasing the size and strength of the gluteus maximus in particular would be expected to improve running speed in anyone.”

Even if we don’t need to move quickly, developing glute strength will pay off. But how? “Anything that involves a pushing-through motion with your legs will engage your glutes,” Margo says. “Running and walking uphill are supremely effective, but there are many ways to work your glutes.”

Cycling is an option, but not if your saddle is set in the wrong position. “You won’t activate the glutes if you set your saddle too high or low,” says Phil Burt, a cycling coach and author of Strength and Conditioning for Cyclists.

“Set your saddle to be level with your hip bone.”

THE BEST WAY TO TONE UP GLUTES

Squeeze your glutes as you sit or stand

You may be spending more time sitting than ever before, but as far as your glutes are concerned you can offset some of that time with simple glute-squeezing.

In a 2019 study published in PeerJ, the journal of life and environmental sciences, exercise scientists at Wichita State University asked volunteers to perform either 15 minutes of gluteal squeezes, which involved sitting up straight and squeezing their gluteal muscles as hard as they could for five seconds before relaxing and repeating; or 15 minutes of glute bridges, in which you lie on the floor and squeeze your glutes to raise your hips so that your body forms a straight line from knees to shoulders, every day for eight weeks.

Their results showed that the glute squeeze matched the glute bridge in hip extension improvements as well as increases in jump and endurance tests. However, the squeeze group had a more significant increase in glute size after the eight-week trial, meaning there are clear “clinical and aesthetic reasons to perform gluteal squeezes”, the researchers said.

 

Do daily step-ups or extra stair-climbing

If you struggle with squats, try repeated stair-climbing either using a machine at the gym or simply by walking up a flight of stairs. “The upward movement and acceleration of each step is a great way to strengthen glutes,” says physiotherapist Jack Chew.

Or try the step-up exercise, which has the same outcome. In a study conducted at the University of Wisconsin, exercise physiologists used electromyographic analysis to measure the muscle recruitment patterns of common gluteal exercises compared with the traditional squat, and step-ups were found to be a good alternative.

To do them, stand behind a tall step or box and put your left foot on top, transferring your weight to that leg. Push down with the heel of your left foot and straighten your leg to come up on top of the platform. Repeat on the same side for 12-16 reps and then change legs. As you get stronger, add weights.

 

Walk or run uphill

Walking or running on an incline is one of the best ways to work the glutes. “Hill walking replicates the muscle engagement of lunges and the gluteus maximus works with the hamstrings to extend the thighs every time you push off with another stride,” Morris says. “Include a range of gradients, starting with gentle inclines until you get stronger.”

She suggests finding a slope or hill 60-80m long and walking up and down it six to eight times, clenching the glutes as you push off with each stride.

The Times